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Hey
Matthew, how have things been?
Wonderful! Professionally, things haven't better and
personally, well, let's just say the past few weeks have
been spent in kinky heaven with my incredibly
fuckilicious girlfriend!
Where did the idea for "Frankenstein Unlimited" come
from?
Well, first and foremost, "Frankenstein Unlimited" came
out of the frustration of trying to get a feature-length
film off the ground in a country hell-bent on financing
films about young women struggling to find themselves
while living on wheat farms in Saskatchewan and coming
to grips with their emotionally crippled husbands and
budding lesbian relationships with neighborhood vegans
instead of films that people actually want to see, which
if attendance figures at festivals like Fantasia,
Toronto After Dark and the Midnight Madness program at
TIFF are any indication, are genre films. Genre cinema
is a bit of an artistic faux-pas here in Canada and as
such, there are so many talented filmmakers wallowing
away in the world of short films when they could be
making feature-length films that would not only blow
peoples' minds, but turn in a profit.
I've
also always been a fan of horror anthology films dating
back to "Creepshow" and "Tales from the Darkside" to
name a few. I especially enjoy anthology films that
bring together well-known directors who each contribute
a piece based on an overall theme like "The Animatrix,"
"Three Extremes" and to a lesser extent the "Masters of
Horror" series. |
And so it was a
combination of these two reasons that led to the emergence of
"Frankenstein Unlimited." Over the years, I had made a lot of
contacts in the glamorous world of non-paid indie filmmaking and as
such, I had met a lot of filmmakers who shared my frustration with
government grants and federal film funding agencies. I figured if we
all pooled our resources together, we would finally be able to make
our elusive first feature film, albeit one made as a collective.
Of course, once the
filmmakers were on board, we needed a theme to unite all our films.
Since this was going to be a film rooted in genre, the project
needed a theme that lent itself to being interpreted in a very broad
sense. With that in mind, the first thing I thought of was
Frankenstein. While many associate Frankenstein with the "guy with
bolts in his neck," anyone who's ever read the actual novel will
know that "Frankenstein" is a wonderful story containing a rich
subtext and a plethora of universal themes that could be applied to
a wide variety of genres, including those that wouldn't even require
the presence of the monster at all. This was the main reason why we
went with something like Frankenstein as opposed to Dracula. If we
made "Dracula Unlimited," we'd be hampered by the fact that every
film would more or less have to feature a vampire as that's what our
audience would expect. Whereas, with "Frankenstein Unlimited," you
can have a sado-erotic film noir, a kung-fu film and a crime drama
all in one project and people wouldn't bat an eye as they'd expect a
project like this to go off in so many tangents as the subject
matter lends itself to being explored in such a way.
The score for
your short "Dark Lotus" has shades of Pink Floyd, was that
intentional?
Well, I
definitely wanted to do something different with the score in "Dark
Lotus," than I had done in "Vampyros Lesbos" or "She Was Asking For
It." One of the critiques people seemed to have about those films
was the fact that they sometimes felt like a series of music videos
rather than complete films due to the score having a very
"stop-and-go" feel to it. In other words, a song would begin and end
when a scene would begin and end. There'd be no cross-over from one
scene to the next as you'd find in a "real film." So, when I sat
down with the sound editor to work on "Dark Lotus," one of the main
things I stressed was how I wanted the score to have a "real film"
feel to it and as such, whenever possible we'd have the music carry
over from one scene to the next so that the film would feel like a
more complete experience, rather than a series of musical vignettes.
So I guess in a sense it did have a "Pink Floyd-quality" in that
they did that kind of thing all the time on their '70s albums.
How long have you been working with Kayden Rose?
Too
long! (laughs) Well, we started working with each other
back in 2008 on "Vampyros Lesbos." Kayden had previously
worked with Mario Carangi, an extraordinary photographer
and my partner-in-crime behind the "Sado-Erotic
Trilogy," and had come highly recommended when we needed
an actress to play the role of Morpho. We had such a
great time working together that I ended up casting her
in the lead for "Dark Lotus" and "Amy's in the Attic." I
guess you can say we have a Jess Franco-Soledad Miranda
thing going on. Here's hoping she doesn't die in a car
crash anytime soon! (laughs)
Was it
stressful to be working with other directors, and was
there a lot of collaboration needed to compile this
feature?
Oh hell
yeah! (laughs) It was absolutely stressful working with
other directors. In many respects, "Frankenstein
Unlimited" was a project that had "doomed to fail"
written all over it. It's stressful enough getting your
own film off the ground, but when the success of a
project depends on five other filmmakers getting their
films off the ground and completed by a set deadline
(not to mention the issue of whether these films would
be any good), well, needless to say, I spent many a
sleepless night questioning my sanity for ever
contemplating such an idea. |
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But on the other
hand, many of these filmmakers were personal friends of mine who had
proven track records of getting stuff done and in the end they did
just that and more, so by the time we had our premiere, I was
finally able to chill out and appreciate the fact that "Frankenstein
Unlimited" was launched in the Fall of 2007 and premiered in the
Fall of 2009, which meant that this feature-length film had a
two-year turnaround, which is an insanely short amount of time for
such a project (with so many "x-factors" involved) to be completed.
And yes, there was
certainly a lot of collaboration among the filmmakers. I, for one,
acted as a sounding board for anyone who wanted constructive
criticism on their scripts and/or their films in progress. I also
helped secure a great deal on a Panasonic HVX-200 camera kit for
Peter James' film, "Occam's Razor." And I even ended up getting a
cameo role in Matthew Forbes' film, "Victor" where I had a chance to
act on-screen with one of my favorite local actors (who starred in
"Dark Lotus") John M. Thomas. Another example of how collaborative
this project was is the fact that Peter James (director of "Occam's
Razor") and Martin Gauthier (director of "Mr. Fluffenstein")
produced each others' films and in many respects shared the same
cast! And finally, I would be remiss in not mentioning the
contribution of Martin Gauthier, who handled the entire
post-production of the film. He compiled the films together based on
a line-up we had all agreed upon, recorded the audio commentaries
for each of the films and even put together the DVD!
What has been
the general reaction to "Frankenstein Unlimited"?
Amazing!
We had our World Premiere on September 9th, 2009 in front
of a sell-out crowd of 200+ people at Cinema du Parc, Montreal's
legendary repertory cinema and the response was overwhelming. Since
then, "Frankenstein Unlimited" has received plenty of positive
reviews, including two from a couple of my favorite movie review
sites, DVD Verdict and The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film
Review. Naturally, given the film's anthology format, certain
segments have been favored over others. But all in all, I think it's
safe to say that each of the shorts have been singled out at one
point or another.
So what's up the
pipeline for "Frankenstein Unlimited"?
A lot of
things actually! When we launched "Frankenstein Unlimited" back in
the Fall of 2007, we did so with two goals in mind. One, was to get
into the Fantasia Film Festival, North America's largest and most
important genre film festival based right here in Montreal. And two,
to find a distribution deal. Ideally a lucrative one, but in the
end, one that would get our film out there and expose our work to
the widest possible audience. I'm very happy to report that in the
eight months that have passed since our premiere last September, we
have achieved both these goals! We signed a deal with Black Flag
Pictures, a very successful distribution company based in Montreal,
headed by Sv Bell (director of "Crawler," "Rise of the Ghosts",
etc.) that specializes in genre cinema, which will see "Frankenstein
Unlimited" distributed in video stores across Canada! The film will
officially be available in August, a date we negotiated for as we
wanted to be able to qualify for Fantasia, as they have a policy of
not screening films that are already available on DVD. Because we
were able to negotiate this, we qualified for Fantasia and got in!
We're still awaiting when and where the screening will take place,
but the fact of the matter is, "Frankenstein Unlimited" will be
having its film festival premiere at Fantasia in July and will then
be available in video stores across Canada in August. I can't even
begin to describe to you how awesome all of this is!
What can you
tell us about "Amy's in the Attic"?
"Amy's
in the Attic" is my latest film that's currently in post-production.
It's a loving homage to Italian exploitation films, namely those in
the "roughie" sub-genre, such as "House on the Edge of the Park."
The film's about a group of friends, Amy (Kayden Rose), Shawn (Matt
Lacas), Barbara (Lisa Di Capa), Mitch (Sebastien Fournier) and Suzy
(Chastity Castro) who are gathered at their ringleader, Alucard's
(yours truly) place one evening for a swinger's party. Things aren't
going according to plan and the party's a bit of a bore. So Alucard
suggests they play a game to liven things up. He tells everyone to
write their name down on a piece of paper and place it in his hat.
Whomever's name is selected from the hat will have to be their slave
for the evening. Naturally, Amy's name is selected. Things start off
innocently enough with Amy being ordered to give the gang a
strip-tease but then things get more and more intense as limits are
pushed, boundaries are crossed and Amy becomes a human sacrifice on
the deviant altar to her friends' deepest and darkest desires. In
other words, it's like an episode of "Friends," only with rape,
violence and female degradation! (laughs)
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How did you get the rights to "Sunshine Superman" for
the film's trailer?
Ah, now
there's a story! I've been pretty fortunate with my
films in that I've always been able to secure the rights
to any given song at a reasonable rate. However, it
wasn't until "Amy's in the Attic" that I realized the
reason why I was able to get these songs. I'm a huge fan
of Donovan and was extremely lucky to strike up a sort
of pen pal relationship with him. I had a bought a copy
of his "Greatest Hits" album that happened to include
his personal e-mail address. I wrote him, never thinking
he'd ever write back. A couple weeks passed and wouldn't
you know it, he wrote me back! We struck up a
conversation and one thing led to another and around the
time I started thinking about the score for "Amy's in
the Attic," I asked him if we could work out a deal
where I could use some of his songs for my film. |
Then he asked me
something that no other musician I was ever fortunate enough to get
the rights to use their songs for ever asked, "What's your film
about?" (laughs) Needless to say, telling Donovan I'd like to use
"Catch the Wind" during a rape scene didn't go over too well! So
there was a bit of a standstill for a few weeks, but we eventually
worked out a deal where I could use the songs provided a certain
percentage of whatever we make off the DVD would be donated to one
of his charities. Of course, I ended up using another song for the
rape scene, which worked just as well, if not better, but there's
plenty of great Donovan tunes used throughout the film.
There's a
peculiar theme about roleplaying and the extremes of sexual
gratification through the roles, have you ever heard of this
instance before?
BDSM
gets a bad rap all the time but it's mostly by ignorant people who
have little to no understanding of what this sexual activity is all
about. I think S&M is the most honest and beautiful form of sexual
expression there is on account of the fact that in order for any
sexual gratification to occur there needs to be an open line of
love, trust and communication between partners, something, mind you,
that doesn't need to exist in order for vanilla sex to take place.
People label fetishes as being deviant and unhealthy when in
reality, we all have fetishes. If you've ever gazed at a woman's
tits and started jerking your curtain, well, guess what, that's a
fetish! We might not call "normal fetishes" like lips, legs, tits
and asses, "fetishes," but that's exactly what they are. I think if
people stopped being so hung up about sex and actually took the time
to open their minds by reading books or having conversations with
people in the scene (of which there are plenty of ways to do so
without having to attend a party straight out of "The Matrix
Revolutions" dressed like a cross between a cenobite and Rob Halford)
there'd be a lot more tolerance and understanding about BDSM.
Part Two of "Matthew Saliba on
'Frankenstein Unlimited' & 'Amy's in the Attic'" >>
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